


Dawn at Thirty

by psocoptera



Series: Thirty Fic [6]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: 30Fic, Gen, Graduate School, Priests, Religious Calling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-13
Updated: 2007-12-13
Packaged: 2018-02-10 17:33:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,469
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2033832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/pseuds/psocoptera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dawn is never going to finish her thesis, and that's okay.  She's found something that matters more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dawn at Thirty

**Author's Note:**

> I have appropriated Anglicanism as a denomination Dawn would plausibly encounter in England. Beliefs expressed are only representative of hypothetical Anglicans who have not only encountered the supernatural but have gotten into the habit of asking it in for tea. Real Anglicans should please let me know if they find anything here offensive or disrespectful, it is certainly not meant to be.

Buffy asks Spike, "I wonder what Dawn wants to tell us tonight?" They've had to park the van several blocks from the restaurant and Buffy seems determined to talk the whole way over. "She said she had some sort of good news. Maybe she's finally finished her thesis. Or found a job! Maybe she's found a job to take while she finishes her thesis?"

"Maybe she's got a new fellow," Spike suggests.

"Do you think?" Buffy asks. "Maybe he'll be there tonight then... she did sound nervous on the phone. As if her taste in boyfriends could surprise me at this point."

Spike says nothing but a dismissive "hmmpf!"

"Ooh," Buffy whispers to Spike as they reach the restaurant and are told that the rest of the party has already been seated, "There's Dawn! But... no boyfriend." Indeed, Dawn is sitting alone between Willow and Xander, who had both made sure to be in town for the occasion.

"But look at the Bit," Spike says back, "Practically glowing, she is. That's love."

"Maybe she really loves her thesis?" Buffy whispers back, and then they're there, and Dawn is standing up and grinning.

"Happy birthday! I can't believe my baby sister is turning _thirty_ ," Buffy says as Dawn leans over to hug her and be hugged. Spike submits to hugging in turn.

There is menu-centric conversation until the waiter comes by, and then everyone looks expectantly at Dawn.

"So Dawn," Buffy starts, "You said you had some news? Maybe something about your thesis?"

Dawn frowns. "My thesis?" She looks a little bewildered, or possibly worried. "No, it's not..."

"But you must be getting close," Willow says encouragingly. "You've been working on it so long..."

"Well," Dawn says, "Actually - "

"Hey," Xander says, "She can take as long as she needs, right Dawn? Girl's going to go educationally where no Scooby has gone before, that's going to take some effort." He smiles self-deprecatingly.

Willow looks a little miffed. "You know, Xander, I could have gone back to school after - "

"I'm going to take orders," Dawn blurts out.

Everyone stops, as if suddenly doubting their hearing. "That'll be a first," Xander snorts. Willow murmurs "kinky" with a suggestive smile.

Buffy looks dubious. "As much as I longed for this day during your teenaged years, Dawn, don't you think it's a little late to try to make up for that?"

Spike looks at them all with exasperation. "Oh, for - you can't all be that thick, she means Holy Orders." His mouth twists like the words taste foul.

"Thank you, Spike," Dawn says. "There's a ministry in London Below, and I've been doing more and more with them, and... I feel called, and my vicar agrees."

Buffy blinks. "You mean... you're going to be a _priest_?" She says it in a half-baffled, half-appalled tone of voice.

"Well, a deacon, at first," Dawn says. "And not even that right away. Maybe a priest eventually. I... I think my vocation goes that way. I hope so."

She looks down and smiles, somehow shy and confident all at once.

"Traditional outreach - well, it's doing great work, of course, but it tends to miss, um, certain fringe populations. The London St. Ninian mission - "

Buffy's eyebrows have been drawing more and more tightly together after their initial jaunt to her hairline, and now they seem to have reached their maximum closeness and she interrupts.

"Dawn, when you said you had news, I thought maybe you had found a _job_!" She sees the smile evaporating from Dawn's face. "I mean, not that missionary isn't a real position, but..." she falters. "Did I really just say that?"

It breaks the tension a little; Dawn and Willow and Xander all snicker. Buffy looks to Spike expecting one of those "you certainly thought so last night" smirks and is surprised to see him scowling.

He catches her eye and pushes back from the table abruptly. "Think I'll go have a fag," he says, and stalks away towards the door.

Dawn looks after him with concern.

"I think he's feeling a little rejected," Buffy says. The tone of her voice suggests he's not the only one. Dawn fingers the gold cross at her throat and sighs.

"So-o-o..." Xander jumps in. "You don't think you'll mind about the, uh, celibacy part?"

"I think you're thinking of Catholics," Dawn suggests.

"Wait, then what are we talking about here?"

"I'm Anglican."

Xander looks unsure. "Dawn," he says, "I know we've all been here a long time, but you're not really English. What happens if you want to go back to America someday?"

"I'd be Episcopalian?" Dawn says.

"Huh," Xander says, "Is that the same thing? I never knew that." He smiles winningly at Dawn.

Buffy is quite sure he did know that; she's so tired of his little "like me, I'm stupid" act. She lets out a small contemptuous breath which Xander unfortunately hears. He sinks back into his seat with an offended expression.

"Won't you miss magic?" Willow says. "I mean, Christians, thou shalt not suffer a witch, yeah? No augury, no casting spells?"

"Actually, among Anglicans who know about magic, there's disagreement," Dawn says. "Some do condemn it, some accept it with limits, a few think as sins go, it's up there with cotton-poly blends. St. Ninian's Under London wouldn't be possible without some magic in the wards, and then, well, say you have a sick parishioner who's bed-bound in their fire subdimension and is requesting pastoral care. Christ doesn't say "care for the sick as long as you can get there without a portal and a cool-air charm.""

"Oh," Xander says, " _Fringe populations._ "

"Gallivanting around to fire dimensions is _just great_ ," Buffy says, "But Dawn, don't you think that might distract you from finishing your thesis?" She says it imploringly, begging for the right answer.

Dawn takes a deep breath. "Actually, Buffy," she says, "That won't be a problem, because - "

"Because of course you're going to finish your thesis!" Buffy interrupts, smiling with relief.

"Well... no."

"You're _not_ going to finish your thesis?" Buffy says, mournfully aghast again. "Oh, Dawn, are you doing ok? I thought everything was going really well..."

"Everything _is_ going really well," Dawn says, only gritting her teeth a little, "It's just not going in a, thesis-ward direction."

"But Dawn..." Buffy says.

"Honestly, the past year has been more of a theology tutorial anyways," Dawn says. "You know my topic, well, my latest topic, was working on comparing angelic manifestations in third-dynasty Sumerian to manifestations in the New Testament, but I was really more interested in the Bible parts, and it went off from there."

"You were going to do a monograph for the new Council cross-referencing the Grall'shak chronicles," Buffy says with disappointment, and a last-ditch shot at proving to Dawn that she's been paying attention.

"I'm not ruling that out," Dawn says, "I do have a lot of notes, it might be nice to pull them together into something. But it's not... that's not what I want to be doing. Long-term."

"All those years of Oxford," Buffy says, shaking her head. "When did this even happen?"

"I've been going to church for ages," Dawn says. "I even used to ask if you wanted to come with me sometime, remember?" Buffy would seem to have lost her bid on having been paying attention. She opens her mouth as if to object and then digs determinedly into her meal.

"You know, Dawnie," Willow says earnestly, "You know that... that doing miraculous things and even coming back from the dead, that doesn't make someone a god. Even if there was a man named Jesus, you don't have to worship him."

"I don't worship the loaves and fishes," Dawn says, laughing a little, " _I_ might be able to do that one, if I had an energy source to pull from, and a bunch of hungry people to feed. But... the _love_..."

"But you've studied so much mythology," Willow says, "In the original Greek and Sumerian and everything, and, well, we've run _into_ enough different gods..."

"There's gods and then there's God," Dawn says. She really doesn't want to get into an argument, but Willow sounds so concerned.

"But you _can't_ think that this one special god just happens to be -"

"So it's okay to talk about Powers That Be as long as they're not named the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit?" Dawn snipes. She's instantly contrite. "I'm sorry, Willow. Um, I wasn't really prepared for a theological cross-examination." She takes a large bite of her neglected dinner.

"I'm just not sure you've thought this through," Willow says. It's clear that she thinks Dawn couldn't possibly have. She pulls out all the stops: "You're not... well, not really... we all love you, but you're, if someone found out... do they know that you're... _different_?"

Dawn listens, curious whether Willow will come out and say it. "St. Nin's is a welcoming congregation," Dawn says when Willow seems to have petered out. "When I started going to church... at first I just listened to the services. It was... I was looking for something. I started reading the Bible, and some of it was so beautiful. It felt _different_ than all that Sumerian. I had no idea if I could... belong. I didn't know if it would be ok for me to get baptized, if I could ever take Communion. I finally went and talked to one of the priests, hinted around a bit, and I got lucky, it was someone who knew the people working Below, and he didn't think I was crazy or anything. He arranged for me to talk to Reverend Harry, my vicar now, and I told him all about being the Key and the monks and the fake memories, and he said." Dawn shuts her eyes; she tends to tear up a little, remembering this. "He said I was a child of God and if God had used monks that day, he wasn't going to second-guess Him." She smiled. "When it comes down to it, it shouldn't really surprise you that the Anglicans are okay with mystical things getting incarnated as humans."

"Um," Xander says "They're not going to start... worshipping you, or something, right?"

"Oh, no way, no," Dawn says, "I mean, all sorts of things can get incarnated. Jesus ... we aren't redeemed because he was an incarnation, we're redeemed because of Who he was. an incarnation. of."

"I really didn't know about the Episcopalians," Xander says contritely, and Buffy sighs. He probably really hadn't known, why would he?

"Ok I need to go," Willow says in a rush. She's been fidgeting, and now she pops to her feet. "Dawn, I'm glad that you're... I have, uh... things to do. _Magic._ " She sounds half apologetic, half defiant, and avoids looking at Dawn. She drops a couple of bills onto the table and barely gets to the door before winking out.

"Will's right," Buffy says, sounding tired, "Let's get the check."

With half the party having fled the scene, it is not the happy occasion that Buffy had hoped for, but she supposes it could have gone worse. Spike still hasn't come back and Buffy catches the quick unspoken agreement between Dawn and Xander that they'll walk her back to the van. Buffy wheels along grimly, without speaking, and they're a silent little group until about halfway there when they're jumped by a gang of vampires.

Most of them foolishly converge on Buffy - the woman in the wheelchair looks like such an easy target, but the scythe flashes in the streetlights as she swings it around, punctuated by little pafs of dust, one-two-three-four. Two of them, however, have gone for Xander, and he gets his stake into the first but it takes the stake with it when it goes. The second moves in on him and Buffy yanks hard on her wheels, but she's not going to get there in time, if she throws the axe and the vamp ducks it could hit Xander, he's looking for something to use as a second stake but there's nothing there on the street...

Buffy sees Dawn pull a flask out of her coat pocket. She pours it out through the circle of the index finger and thumb of her other hand, muttering something, and it freezes instantly into an icicle, which she grabs out of the air and plunges into the vampire's back.

It dusts.

Buffy stares at her.

"Holy Water," Dawn says. She spreads her hands, not challenging, inviting.

Buffy is silent for a moment.

"Ok," she says finally, "That was pretty awesome, Dawn." Buffy reaches out to take Dawn's hand. "You really... this really works for you," she says. "The whole Key thing, at dinner, I've never heard you, you just sound really... ok. You sound like I do about being the Slayer," she finishes. "Like I do now," she amends.

Dawn's smile is like a pinball jackpot, ding-ding-ding, she gets it! She beams at Buffy. "That's what I want to do with my ministry," she says. "There's this robot colony that's started to send a unit to Sunday services, I think they're really looking for a sense of identity, I'm hoping that with my background - well. I shouldn't get too far ahead of myself," she says sheepishly.

"And I hate that you're only ok with this because I've demonstrated that I can still kick butt," she adds, rolling her eyes theatrically.

"Can't believe I missed it," Spike says, materializing out of the dark. "Nice trick with the Jesus juice, there."

"And you, also, all about the butt-kicking," Dawn says, and tries not to show how relieved she is. "Why am I not surprised."

"Well," Spike says, possibly aiming for modesty. It's a very smug modesty. "Hate to see you quit the family line."

Dawn leans at him in a hug-threatening manner.

"And I don't feel "rejected"," he adds, and Buffy blushes. Stupid vampire hearing. "Just... women got no business in the clergy," he says gruffly.

Dawn looks at him carefully and reaches out her free hand to take his. She still has Buffy's and for a moment they form a perfect triangle.

"God's mercy is infinite," she whispers to Spike. "You... there is no limit to God's forgiveness. For any soul. And there's always a way back."

"Don't know what you're talking about," Spike mutters. Vampires don't cry, and they definitely don't get all weepy over fairy-stories from their long-ago boyhoods. He'll tell Buffy as much if she asks.

She doesn't, and Dawn doesn't say anything else, and they hold hands there in the streetlight. And Xander's there, watching out for more vampires, and Willow will come back, she always does, and for just a moment, Buffy thinks this must be something like praying.

"Happy birthday, Dawnie," she says.

**Author's Note:**

> A reader pointed out to me that my Dawn's university education so far (11 years of ancient history/ancient languages, have gone to Oxford for uni and just sort of stayed) might not apply well to the educational requirements of the priesthood. I think my Anglicans in London Below are less strict about formal requirements than the main church. A seminary education isn't going to tell you what to do when you're asked to baptize a baby djinn (sprinkle? pour? immerse? It's a whirling ball of flame and air with burning eyes. Can it even be touched by water at all? If not, did the baptism "take"? Is this even appropriate? There are six adults here with it, all twelve feet tall, and they've travelled a long way for this. One of them has started snacking on the incense, another one is eyeing the votive candles, and the rest are glaring at you. Think fast!) There are probably interesting conflicts between people who were ordained the normal way and only later found out about vampires and magic, and people already in the supernatural world who got involved with the Anglicans during apocalypses or whatever and ended up staying.


End file.
